Geology. Козлова Е.П. - 25 стр.

One striking example to that effect is Kazakhstan where the world’s biggest
chromium deposit at Kilmpersai is being developed by Japan. Its copper-
molybdenum deposits at Jeskazgan and Kounrad are being developed by South Korea
and its gold-fields are being mined by Israel.
       And there are also some geological problems – above all the reproduction of
deposits which today make up for the volume of extraction only by one half of even
one third. This applies to most of the mineral deposits (uranium, apatites copper,
nickel platinum, etc.).
       Due to our obsolete machinery and the equipment we are now lagging behind
the world level of raws – processing technologies. In this article entitled “Mineral
Resources in the Strategy of Developed of Russia’s Economy” published in St.
Petersburg in 1999, Vladimir Putin stressed that more than 70 percent of machinery
at mining enterprises is over 10 years old-twice as much as such equipment in the
developed countries.
       Finally, and even more important , has been a paradoxical situation which has
emerged in Russia during the 1990s when as a result of the policy of taxation and
disproportionate growth of the prices of electricity and transport we kind of lost from
30 to 60 percent of our tangible and economically viable mineral resources.

                                    What’s to be done?

       In a short term perspective - for the next one to three years - the main task
consists in regulating the use of mineral resources with the help of economic controls.
Expert recommendations to this effect have been sufficiently analyzed at the
appropriate research institutes of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian
Federation. The main points of their recommendations are the follows:
        What we need are appropriate state regulations of the uses of our mineral
wealth (tax, price and customs controls), control of the observance of licence
agreements, including areas covering the effectiveness of the development of the
deposits, observance of the technical norms of the extractions, processing and export
of raws.
         At the same time we should keep in the focus our internal investment
opportunities and promote the development of “home-made” mining machinery and
equipment, piping, ore crushers, etc.

       Steps should be taken to specify some articles in the mining legislation to
promote and encourage broader direct investments into the industry

          And problems of a different kind come on the agenda if one thinks of
development prospects of the country’s mineral and raw material bases over the next
3 to 5 years. Of central importance here is a task of improvement of the technologies
of mining, dressing, extraction and processing of raws.




                                                                                    27